The Valpo Chamber supported the Valparaiso School Referendums by encouraging voters to vote YES to the two referendums on the May 5 ballot.

The Chamber appointed a special task force over a year ago to begin reviewing the proposed referendums.  The task force was made up of some of the most recent past chairs of the Valpo Chamber including co-chairs Jon Schmaltz, Attorney with the law firm Burke Costanza and Carberry, and Martin Sonnenberg, President of Task Force Tips.

The Chicago Headline Club, the largest Society of Professional Journalists chapter in the country, presented the winners of its 2014 Lisagor Awards at its annual awards dinner tonight before more than 300 people at the Union League Club of Chicago. The awards recognize the best of Chicago journalism and are named for Peter Lisagor, the Chicago Daily News' Washington bureau chief from 1959 to 1976.

The Times newsroom won the 2014 Lisagor Award for General Excellence in Print Journalism, beating out every other daily newspaper in the Chicagoland area. The Times also earned seven other first-place editorial awards at the 2014 Lisagor Awards held at the Union League Club of Chicago. The Chicago Headline Club is the largest Society of Professional Journalists chapter in the country. The other Times awards, which were for daily newspapers with a circulation of less than 250,000, included:

•          Best education reporting for Carmen McCollum's story "Schools, students struggle with suicides."
•          Best political and government reporting for Marc Chase's story "Lake County solid waste district wastes taxpayer's money."
•          Best science, health, technology or environment reporting for Chase's series "What's killing the region? What's killing our youth."
•          Best editorial writing for Doug Ross' column "Agency's purse strings need tight control."
•          Best business or consumer report for Keith Benman's story "Looking to Kenosha to guide Indiana on luring jobs."
•          Best investigative reporting for Marisa Kwiatkowski's "A different kind of war."
•          Best news photo for John Watkins', John Luke's and Jonathan Miano's photos of slain Gary Patrolman Jeffrey Westerfield's funeral.